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The Manxman: A Novel, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 4. Man And Wife - Chapter 18 |
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_ PART IV. MAN AND WIFE CHAPTER XVIII As soon as he was out of earshot Pete began to run. Within half an hour he was back at Elm Cottage. "She'll be home by this time," he told himself, but he dared not learn the truth too suddenly. Creeping up to the hall window, he listened at the broken pane. The child was crying, and Nancy Joe was talking to herself, and sobbing as she bathed the little one. "Bless its precious heart, it's as beautiful as the angels in heaven. I've bathed her mother on the same knee a hundred times. 'Deed have I, and a thousand times too. Mother, indeed! What sort of mothers are in now at all? She must have a heart-as hard as a stone to lave the like of it. Can't be a drop of nature in her.... Goodness, Nancy, what are saying for all? Kate is it? Your own little Kirry, and you blackening her! Aw, dear!--aw, dear! The bogh!--the bogh!" Pete could not go in. He crept back to the cabin in the garden and leaned against it to draw his breath and think. Then he noticed that the dog was on the path with its long tongue hanging over its jaw. It stopped its panting to whine woefully, and then it turned towards the darker part of the garden. "He's telling me something," thought Pete. A car rattled down the side road at that moment, and the light of its lamp shot through the bushes to his feet. "The ould gate must be open," he thought. He looked and saw that it was, and then a new light dawned on him. "She's gone up to Philip's," he told himself. "She's gone by Claughbane to Ballure to find me." Five minutes afterwards he was knocking at Ballure House. His breath was coming in gusts, perspiration was standing in beads on his face, and his head was still bare, but he was carrying himself bravely as if nothing were amiss. His knock was answered by the maid, a tall girl of cheerful expression, in a black frock, a white apron, and a snow-white cap. Pete nodded and smiled at her. "Anybody been here for me? No?" he asked. "No, sir, n--o, I think not," the girl answered, and as she looked at Pete her face straightened. There was a rustling within as of autumn leaves, and then a twittering voice cried, "Is it Capt'n Quilliam, Martha?" "Yes, ma'am." Some whispered conference took place at the dining-room door, and Auntie Nan came hopping through the hall. But Pete was already moving away in the darkness. "Shall I call the Deemster, Peter?" "Aw, no, ma'am, no, not worth bothering him. Good everin', Miss Christian, ma'am, good everin' to you." Auntie Nan and Martha were standing in the light at the open door when the iron gate of the garden swung to with a click, and Pete swung across the road. He was making for the lane which goes down to the shore at the foot of Ballure Glen. "No denying it," he thought. "It must be true for all. The trouble in her head has driven her to it. Poor girl, poor darling!" He had been fighting against an awful idea, and the quagmire of despair had risen to his throat at last. The moon was behind the cliffs, and he groped his way through the shadows at the foot of the rocks like one who looks for something which he dreads to find. He found nothing, and his catchy breathing lengthened to sighs. "Thank God, not here, anyway!" he muttered. Then he walked down the shore towards the harbour. The tide was still high, the wash of the waves touched his feet; on the one hand the dark sea, unbroken by a light, on the other the dull town blinking out and dropping asleep. He reached the end of the stone pier at the mouth of the harbour, and with his back to the seaward side of the lighthouse he stared down into the grey water that surged and moaned under the rounded wall. A black cloud like a skate was floating across the moon, and a startled gannet scuttled from under the pier steps into the moon's misty waterway. There was nothing else to be seen. He turned back towards the town, following the line of the quay, and glancing down into the harbour when he came to the steps. Still he saw nothing of the thing he looked for. "But it was high water then, and now it's the ebby tide," he told himself. He had met with nobody on the shore or on the pier, but as he passed the sheds in front of the berth for the steamers he was joined by the harbour-master, who was swinging home for the night, with his coat across his arm. Then he tried to ask the question that was slipping off his tongue, but dared not, and only stammered awkwardly---- "Any news to-night, Mr. Quay le?" "Is it yourself, Capt'n? If you've none, I've none. It's independent young rovers like you for newses, not poor ould chaps tied to the harbour-post same as a ship's cable. I was hearing you, though. You'd a power of music in the everin' yonder. Fine doings up at Ballure, seemingly." "Nothing fresh with yourself then, Daniel? No?" "Except that I am middling sick of these late sailings, and the sooner they're building us a breakwater the better. If the young Deemster will get that for us, he'll do." They were nearing a lamp at the corner of the marketplace. "It's like you know the young Ballawhaine crossed with the boat to-night? Something wrong, with the ould man, they're telling me. But boy, veen, what's come of your hat at all?" "My hat?" said Pete, groping about his head. "Oh, my hat? Blown off on the pier, of coorse." "'Deed, man! Not much wind either. You'll be for home and the young wife, eh, Capt'n?" "Must be," said Pete, with an empty laugh. And the harbour-master, who was a bachelor, laughed more heartily, and added---- "You married men are like Adam, you've lost the rib of your liberty, but you've got a warm little woman to your side instead." "Ha! ha! ha! Goodnight!" Pete's laugh echoed through the empty market-place. The harbour-master had seen nothing. Pete drew a long breath, followed the line of the harbour as far as to the bridge at the end of it, and then turned back through the town. He had forgotten again that he was bareheaded, and he walked down Parliament Street with a tremendous step and the air of a man to whom nothing unusual had occurred. People were standing in groups at the corner of every side street, talking eagerly, with the low hissing sound that women make when they are discussing secrets. So absorbed were they that Pete passed some of them unobserved. He caught snatches of their conversation. "The rascal," said one. "Clane ruined the ould man, anyway," said another. "Ross Christian again," thought Pete. But a greater secret swamped everything. Still he heard the people as he passed. "Sarve her right, though, whatever she gets--she knew what he was." "Laving the child, too, the unfeeling creature." Then the sharp voices of the women fell on the dull consciousness of Pete like forks of lightning. "Whisht, woman! the husband himself," said somebody. There was a noise of feet like the plash of retiring waves, and Pete noticed that one of the groups had broken into a half circle, facing him as he strode along the street. He nodded cheerfully over both sides, threw back his bare head, and plodded on. But his teeth were set hard, and his breathing was quick and audible. "I see what they mane," he muttered. Outside his own house he found a crowd. A saddle-horse, with a cloud of steam rising from her, was standing with the reins over its head, linked to the gate-post. It was Caesar's mare, Molly. Every eye was on the house, and no one saw Pete as he came up behind. "Black Tom's saying there's not a doubt of it," said a woman. "Gone with the young Ballawhaine, eh?" said a man. "Shame on her, the hussy," said another woman. Pete ploughed his way through with both arms, smiling and nodding furiously. "If you, plaze, ma'am I If _you_ plaze." As he pushed on he heard voices behind him. "Poor man, he doesn't know yet."--"I'm taking pity to look at him." The house-door was open. On the threshold stood a young man with long hair and a long note-book. He was putting questions. "Last seen at seven o'clock--left alone with child--husband out with procession--any other information?" Nancy Joe, with the child on her lap, was answering querulously from the stool before the fire, and Caesar, face down, was leaning on the mantelpiece. Pete took in the situation at a glance. Then he laid his big hand on the young man's shoulder and swung him aside as if he had been turning a swivel. "What going doing?" he asked. The young man faltered something. Sorry to intrude--Capt'n Quilliam's trouble. "What trouble?" said Pete. "Need I say--the lamented--I mean distressing--in fact, the mysterious disappearance----" "What disappearance?" said Pete, with an air of amazement. "Can it be, sir, that you've not yet heard----" "Heard what? Your tongue's like a turnip-watch in a fob pocket--out with it, man." "Your wife, Captain----" "What? My wife disa---- What? So this is the jeel! My wife mysteriously disappear---- Oh, my gough!" Pete burst into a peal of laughter. He shouted, roared, held his sides, doubled, rocked up and down, and at length flung himself into a chair, threw back his head, heaved out his legs, and shook till the house itself seemed to quake. "Well, that's good! that's rich! that bates all!" he cried. The child awoke on Nancy's knee and sent its thin pipe through Pete's terrific bass. Caesar opened his mouth and gaped, and the young man, now white and afraid, scraped and backed himself to the door, saying-- "Then perhaps it's not true, after all, Capt'n?" "Of coorse it's not true," said Pete. "Maybe you know where she's gone." "Of course I know where's she's gone. I sent her there myself!" "You did, though?" said Caesar. "Yes, did I--to England by the night sailing." "'Deed, man!" said Caesar. "The doctor ordered it. You heard him yourself, grandfather." "Well, that's true, too," said Caesar. The young man closed his long note-book and backed into a throng of women who had come up to the porch. "Of course, if you say so, Capt'n Quilliam----" "I do say so," shouted Pete; and the reporter disappeared. The voices of two women came from the gulf of white faces wherein the reporter had been swallowed up. "I'm right glad it's lies they've been telling of her, Capt'n," said the first. "Of coorse you are, Mistress Kinnish," shouted Pete. "I could never have believed the like of the same woman, and I always knew the child was brought up by hand," said the other. "Coorse you couldn't, Mistress Kewley," Pete replied. But he swung up and kicked the door to in their faces. The strangers being shut out, Caesar said cautiously-- "Do you mane that, Peter?" "Molly's smoking at the gate like a brewer's vat, father," said Pete. "The half hasn't been told you, Peter. Listen to me. It's only proper you should hear it. When you were away at Kim-berley this Ross Christian was bothering the girl terrible." "She'll be getting cold so long out of the stable," said Pete. "I rebuked him myself, sir, and he smote me on the brow. Look! Here's the mark of his hand over my temple, and I'll be carrying it to my grave." "Ross Christian! Ross Christian!" muttered Pete impatiently. "By the Lord's restraining grace, sir, I refrained myself--but if Mr. Philip hadn't been there that night--I'm not hould-ing with violence, no, resist not evil--but Mr. Philip fought the loose liver with his fist for me; he chastised him, sir; he--" "D------the man!" cried Pete, leaping to his feet. "What's he to me or my wife either?" Caesar went home huffed, angry, and unsatisfied. And then, all being gone and the long strain over, Pete snatched the puling child out of Nancy's arms, and kissed it and wept over it. "Give her to me, the bogh," he cried, hoarse as a raven, and then sat on the stool before the fire, and rocked the little one and himself together. "If I hadn't something innocent to lay hould of I should be going mad, that I should. Oh, Katherine bogh! Katherine bogh! My little bogh! My I'll bogh millish!" In the deep hours of the night, after Nancy had grumbled and sobbed herself to sleep by the side of the child, Pete got up from the sofa in the parlour and stole out of the house again. "She may come up with the morning tide," he told himself. "If she does, what matter about a lie, God forgive me? God help me, what matter about anything?" If she did not, he would stick to his story, so that when she came back, wherever she had been, she would come home as an honest woman. "And _will be_, too," he thought. "Yes, will be, too, spite of all their dirty tongues--as sure as the Lord's in heaven." The dog trotted on in front of him as he turned up towards Ballure. _ |
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